How the Quovo Deal Validates Envestnet’s Vision for Yodlee
“Good ideas are always crazy, until they’re not.” – Larry Page, co-founder of Google When Envestnet CEO Jud Bergman announced that his company was shelling out just under $600 million to buy data aggregator Yodlee, saying that the market did not approve was an understatement. The firm was blasted by both the press and equity […]
Invest West Conference 7 Minute Summary
As anyone who has sat next to me at a conference knows, I’m a hyperactive tweeter, sharing interesting tidbits and observations from the various speakers and panelists. So, one would expect that someone who uses Twitter so much would think to check the conference hashtag before blasting out fifty or more tweets? Not I, said […]
Do Canadian RoboAdvisors Provide Bad Service?
In an article in Canada’s Financial Post, author Jonathan Chevreau discusses a study by Boston-based consulting firm Dalbar that used 45 “mystery shoppers” to assess ten Canadian-based robo-advisors. They found that some platforms are falling short on service expectations, which creates “significant reputational risk”. Chevreau, the CFO of Financial Independence Hub, explained that the mystery shoppers reported a number […]
Wealthfront Revs Up With AI, But Is Still Running on Fumes
Wealthfront finds itself facing a cloudy future as its fifth anniversary nears, thanks to the dust that its bigger rivals, Vanguard and Schwab, and its disruptive competitor, Betterment, are leaving in their wake. The robo-advisor just announced a collection of new features that they hope will right the ship and get their asset growth back on […]
Why Acorns is the Only Roboadvisor That Could Be Worth $1 Billion
It’s been nearly a year since Vanguard and Schwab launched automated advice platforms, stepping into the fray against roboadvisors and apparently winning. As we’ve discussed, the end may be near for the Wealthfront as the big boys are close to knocking the upstarts out of the fight. Meanwhile, a presumed lightweight in the battle for […]
Dead Robo Walking: Why Wealthfront is Doomed
As recently as last summer, Adam Nash, CEO of roboadvisor Wealthfront, was boasting about his firm’s rapid growth and how they could soon replace ‘traditional’ financial advisors. How fast the world changes in just a few months. In an article in InvestmentNews, Alessandra Malito reported that Wealthfront’s AUM growth slowed to a crawl by the end of last year: Wealthfront, which […]
How a Snapchat RoboAdvisor Could Rock the Industry
Social media has changed the way people interact with each other and how they receive and consume information. Is the next step changing the way they invest? Robo-advisors have become a hot topic in the investment industry recently. Social media messaging service Snapchat is even rumored to be building a robo-advisor service of its own. Could a […]
3 Thoughts on Why Invesco Acquiring Jemstep Was A Smart Move
I’ve been a big fan of Jemstep for quite a while now. I first met their president, Simon Roy, at a T3 conference a few years ago when he was on a panel of robo-platform providers. (See 4 Robo-Platforms Go Head-to-Head at T3 Conference) While Jemstep started out with a short-lived direct to consumer model and then […]
